Witnessing the First-Ever Amazon Strike
By Arthur Schwartz
Leticia James addressing strikers on December 20. Photos courtesy of the Teamsters Union.
We all use Amazon these days without really thinking about it. You get online on day one, and its likely you will have a package of whatever you wish, at a discount price, at your door either the same day or the next day. And our patronage has made the principal owner, Jeff Bezos, the second richest man on the earth (second only to Co-President Elon Musk), worth around $300 billion.
But behind this operation are 350,000 employees, most of whom make between $18.50 and $20.00 an hour. I have gotten to hear the inside story from workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse, in western Staten Island, close to the Goethals Bridge. In 2022 about 8,000 of those workers voted, successfully, for the first time to have a union, the Amazon Labor Union. The win made big news, and the union leader, Chris Smalls, became an international celebrity, but Amazon challenged the vote for the next two years, and has refused to bargain. In July, 2024 the workers elected new leaders, and I became the union’s lawyer.
Amazon strikers picketing at midnight December 20 at JFK8 warehouse.
Amazon is trying to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and have the entire U.S. labor law system declared unconstitutional.
What is it like to work in a windowless warehouse which is large enough to park a jumbo jet inside? Bad enough that Amazon has a 120% employee turnover at JFK8 every year. Workers either quit because of the incredible stress they are put under moving boxes hour after hour, with quotas, or they are fired. One Amazon worker described what happens inside as follows: “It’s competitive, cutthroat, and uncaring—primarily numbers-driven. If you bring the numbers, your attitude can be crap, but they’ll put up with you. If you don’t bring the numbers, no reason is good enough to prevent them from drumming you out. Attitude is secondary to productivity. Safety is secondary to productivity.” The New York State Senate just finished a review declaring Amazon one of most dangerous places to work in the state.
Efforts to organize have been undercut by firing of activists. And when they dare to picket or rally outside the warehouse, the local subservient NYPD arrests the leaders, and then throws the improper summonses in the garbage.
In June, the ALU affiliated with the Teamsters, who are organizing Amazon workers nationwide, and that affiliation gave the ALU the resources and support to call for the first ever strike. At midnight on Friday December 20, a group of organizers marched into the warehouse, past the cops, past security, and left 20 minutes later with 300 workers behind them. I was standing there (having been negotiating with the NYPD for the prior 16 hours) and my reaction? I began to cry. Here were workers taking on the second richest man in the world, risking their jobs, demanding respect for their union. The 300 supporters outside (it was 19 degrees!) cheered, and then helped the striking workers form a picket line along the length of the warehouse parking lot. The cops allowed entering cars to be leafleted.
The next morning NY Attorney General Leticia James came to address the crowd; the temperature had dipped to 16 degrees. She was joined by Justin Brannan, a City Council Member running for City Comptroller, and Amazon workers from around the U.S. The strike continued until midnight Monday. The struggle will continue.
